President launches low-cost tablet Aakash-2

President Pranab Mukherjee at the launch of Aakash-2 tablet in New Delhi on Sunday. Photo: PTI

Updated: Mon, Nov 12 2012. 12 40 AM IST

New Delhi: The advanced version of low-cost tablet Aakash was launched in New Delhi on Sunday by President Pranab Mukherjee.

Coming at a price tag of Rs.1,130 for students, the new version “Aakash 2”, which will be made available to students of engineering colleges and universities to begin with, is now powered by a processor running at 1 gigahertz (GHz), has a 512 MB, a 7 inch capacitive touch screen and a battery working for three hours of normal operations. It has been developed under the aegis of IIT Bombay with the active support of THE Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.

Canada-based firm Datawind is rolling out the device. “The price is Rs.2,263 at which the government purchases the device from us. The government subsidizes it by 50% and it will be distributed to students at Rs.1,130,” said Datawind chief executive officer Suneet Tuli. He said the government is also trying to encourage the state governments to chip in by subsidizing it further so that the device can eventually be available to students free of cost.

The first 100,000 devices will be provided to students of engineering colleges and universities and subsequently these will be distributed to others. About 220 million students will get the device across the country in the next five-six years.